For Parents & Families
A first-year chapter does not have upperclassmen, alumni, or a booster club with a decade of momentum yet. It has whoever shows up. If you have an hour a month or a specific skill to offer, there is a real, useful place for it here.
Good to Know
Agricultural education and FFA aren't just tolerated in Florida — there's real legal and financial backing behind them. A couple of things worth knowing:
Under Florida Statute § 1003.24(2), any day, portion of a day, or days a student misses school to participate in an FFA or 4-H sponsored activity or program must be credited as an excused absence — the same as any other excused absence, and it cannot be marked unexcused. If a school requests proof, the chapter can provide documentation of participation.
Programs like this one are supported through Career and Technical Education funding, including federal Perkins V dollars administered by the state. Florida FFA membership itself is also kept deliberately low-cost — state dues are just $10 per member, alongside modest national dues — so that cost is as small a barrier as possible to joining.
How To Help
None of this requires an agriculture background. It requires showing up.
Classroom help, garden/backyard help, organizational help, food for chapter meetings and events — if you've got an hour and a willingness to pitch in, there's a spot for you here even without a specific skill in mind.
A veterinarian, a landscaper, a food scientist, someone in agricultural policy or finance — a single career-day visit or a judged-event volunteer from a relevant field is a real contribution to a student's education.
A founding chapter is buying its first set of equipment, jackets, and supplies with no prior budget to draw on. Help running a fundraiser, or a connection to a potential local sponsor, moves this faster than almost anything else.
Hands-on labor to get our ag yard and garden space built out — clearing, building beds, general grunt work. If you're handy or just willing to sweat for an afternoon, this is where it's needed most.
Extra hands at weigh-ins, tagging, and fair week itself — hauling, set-up, and just being another adult present when a student is showing for the first time.
Conferences, competitions, and shows mean vans and trailers on the road. Families with a truck, a trailer, or just a reliable vehicle and a free Saturday are always needed.
Chaperoning, checking students in, running a table at a school event — the unglamorous work that makes a chapter event actually happen.
Got tools you'd like to get rid of? Winter Park FFA would love to use them.
We're building out our ag yard and starting a garden this year — new or gently used tools make a real difference for a founding program starting from nothing.
What we could use:
New or gently used — both help.
Help us build an Official Dress closet:
More opportunities for students, not less.
This helps any student who doesn't have access to Official Dress yet, or who simply forgot what they needed on a specific day. Seeking new and gently used, in all sizes, for both men and women:
“More opportunities for students, not less.”
I'd like to donate →Wish List
There is no supply closet from a previous year to inherit from. There are a few ways to help — pick whichever fits your family.
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Alumni & Supporters
Winter Park FFA Alumni & Supporters
Photo credit: TK Photos
FFA Alumni & Supporters — now branded nationally as the Forever Blue Network — is the adult side of the organization: parents, community members, and industry partners who back a chapter financially and with time, long after their own student has graduated. Membership is open to anyone looking to support FFA, whether or not they were a member themselves. Winter Park doesn't have a chapter of this yet. That's the point — the founding members are being recruited this year, not inherited from someone else's work.
Living to Serve
"Living to Serve" is the last line of the FFA Motto, and it's not just a phrase we recite — every month, this chapter picks one community service project and does it, together. Small, real, and consistent beats one big showcase event a year.
More opportunities for students, not less.
Some examples of the kind of project that fits: a food pantry donation drive, packing meals for a local shelter, a park or beach cleanup, visiting a senior living community, a school supply drive for a partner elementary school, a blood drive, or a holiday toy or coat collection. The best projects are ones a student or family already cares about — which is exactly why we want your ideas, not just ours.